Ring Ring Ring Ring....

BANANA PHONE!!!

If he wasn't such an inspiration for children I would be cursing Raffi right now!

Paul and I have had kid's songs stuck our heads for the past two days. I'm currently doing reaserach for my open classes next month (the classes when the mom's sit in and watch). Jenny has requested that I do a "skit" for quality class (the one with Gilbert in it)... yeah right. But what the boss says goes, so I will try. I think I'm going to do a "down by the bay" thing... I'll keep you posted.

I also had to find a song for the birthday party. One of my kids has a birthday in October which means my class has to perform a song at the birthday party. After listening to many kid's songs I went with "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story. It's not easy finding a song that hasn't been done in the last year or so.

Things are pretty good with us. I'm still sick, so I'm going to head to the doctor's today for more drugs. I just can't seem to kick this cough and since we're leaving for Vietnam in less then five days I really want to get rid of it.

That's about it from us. We will try and write before we leave for Vietnam! And if you've never listened to Raffi's Banana Phone song, you've got to... it's fantastic!! (insert sarcasim here)

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Click here to listen to Banana Phone (scroll down...)
http://www.amazon.com/Bananaphone-Raffi/dp/B0000003HW

One Day Weekend

Well, we went to work on Saturday to be judges for the SLP Speech Contest. This contest is a huge deal for the kids, the parents, and most of all the school. It is essentially a showcase of talent, and a representation of how well the students are being taught at SLP. The winners of this contest go to the big contest competeting against other schools. The auditorium was full of parents watching their kids perform. Overall, I would say that it went very well.

It was fun being a judge. We got to ask each student a question to see how their conversation skills have developed...you know like "what is your favourite season?" or "what was the socialist movement that defined realism in the late 18th century?" You know easy stuff like that.

It is a lot of pressure for a seven year old to get up on stage, speak into the microphone, and then answer four questions from judges. It seemed to go really well, and the school was pleased. We did get paid to judge...which was nice, but I probably would have gone anyway to see some of my students perform.

After a while it did get pretty exhausting. If I hear the story of the Little Red Hen one more time, I am going to snap.

Other than that, everything is pretty much status quo around here. Hockey for me is a real nice treat. Next week we have a BBQ and a tournement. Should be fun. I am getting back into much better shape, and I can already feel a difference on the ice.

We are having a good time. Everything here is pretty good. Sometimes the language barrier can be frustrating, but it is part of the experience. I was explaining to John that the barrier is different from when you are on vacation. When you are on vacation, you have trouble explaining where you want to go to the taxi driver, here you have trouble everywhere...the bank, the post office, the phone company, the gas company...whole new ballgame. But once you manage to commuincate and solve your problem...there is a bit of a rush, and a sense of accomplishment. It's funny, in a country so concerned with learning English, it sometimes seems hard to find.

Two more weeks until we are off to Vietnam. It will be nice to travel again. We are going with Ivan (from Ireland) and Eva (from America), and we should have a great time. We will be sure to set up a Vietnam folder on our photo album so you can see what we saw.

Let us know how you guys are doing too.

Paul

SLP Speech Contest

This is a prelude to what will be a longer and more detailed blog. Our apologies for not writing sooner. Sometimes its hard to think of things to write when you do the same thing everyday :) Not much is new. We leave for Vietnam in about two weeks and we are both very excited. It should be a great trip - if it stops raining there!

As for the title of the blog. Today is the 6th Annual SLP Speech Contest. A VERY big deal for the student and an even BIGGER DEAL for the parents. We've been preparing the kids for the speeches for the last month and today is the big day. There has already been a prelimiary round to narrow it down to today's contestants. Today we will be picking five students from each age category to go to SLP headquarters to compete. Paul and I have signed up for judges. It is a longer day then we expected (10:40am-5pm), but apparently they are paying us for it (since it is Saturday). We will write more about the outcome later.

Talk to you soon.

P.S. Please drop us an email if you want to set up a voice/video chat on MSN.

Crikey

The world of environmentalism and animal rights has suffered a great loss today. Paul and I were in the teacher's room today when we found out about the death of Steve Irwin (more commonly known as The Crocodile Hunter).

I always thought it was ironic that he was nicknamed the Crocodile Hunter, since what he chose to do with his life was so very opposite of that title. Although most people knew about him through his television show and his risk-taking type lifestyle, both Paul and I were always more interested in his efforts to save the planet... in his own way.

I'm sure that those efforts will continue to live on in his memory. His wife is also extremely active in the environmentalism front.

Times like this always make me think of one of my favourite quotes.

"You can't change the world, but you can make a dent."

I imagine he made quite a dent.